51–60 of 127 posts
A quick search indicates that <100 dB ultrasonic is legal. So make a phone cover that generates ~80 dB spread spectrum ultrasonic. That should be enough, right?
Poor dogs...
I'm sorry this is completely bogus, if there was ultrasonic audio emanating from everyone's phones dogs would go nuts. We can't hear it but they sure can.
anyone know of an app that can detect these signals? Maybe decode them. easiest way to block them is to know they are there in the first place. i am suspicious that occasionally my laptop makes high pitch noise correlated to mouse movements when its running windows 10. edit:Thinking about it. seems possible that might actually be facebook. never installed their phone app untill i had android 6 because it wants mic pe…
This is interesting. With the permissions system in Marshmallow, you can selectively disable microphone access, which is good. Those of us stuck on Lollipop will just have to be careful what apps we install.
Alternatively, CyanogenMod has had Privacy Guard for quite a while now, so that might be an option if your phone is one of the supported devices.
I'm working on an app that passively picks up ultrasonic tones generated by SilverPush and sends out garbled data. The biggest issue with blanket interference across the entire ultrasonic band is that there are some legitimate uses that don't involve cross-device tracking. That's why we need to address this issue by selectively interfering with only known tracking schemes.
This is reaching the point where the only sensible policy is to flat-out prohibit all forms of adverting on any medium. Paying a company to lie to you is already a pretty bizarre idea but the invasion of privacy - online or offline - makes advertising increasingly intolerable.
This kind of system should be opt-in only, with hand-signed agreements.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The key goal is cross-device tracking. Your phone vs your notebook vs your TV vs whatever else around has audio and net uplink.
Given the advertiser benefit, I wonder if the purpose of the article is to boost the sales of ultrasonic services to advertisers. When I say purpose, clearly Ars' purpose is clickbait, but the purpose of wherever the information was sourced/initiated. Somewhere in an advertising conference dark side corridor there is a booth advertising snake oil "ultrasonic cross device user tracking as featured by Ars Technica."
I'm working on an app that passively picks up ultrasonic tones generated by SilverPush and sends out garbled data. The biggest issue with blanket interference across the entire ultrasonic band is that there are some legitimate uses that don't involve cross-device tracking. That's why we need to address this issue by selectively interfering with only known tracking schemes.
This is reaching the point where the only sensible policy is to flat-out prohibit all forms of adverting on any medium. Paying a company to lie to you is already a pretty bizarre idea but the invasion of privacy - online or offline - makes advertising increasingly intolerable.
I found it interesting that the FCC's recommendation was to build an opt-out system, since this is so obviously anti-human and pro-corporation. It shows where their interests lie. This kind of system should be opt-in only, with hand-signed agreements.